So its not like I am too much of a lost lamb. If the information inst getting to someone with that level of interest (all be it less than it used to be) then its hardly my fault.

The vast majority of western sources barely cover Japanese games any more unless it's a big budget current gen game, or it's one of those "Look at these crazy japs with their porno games" stories. As mentioned above, a lot of that is to do with Japan being so focussed on portable games. The corollary of that is that the English language media is laser focussed on gaming as being what you do on your current gen console, probably the 360, but certainly not the Wii.

If you read Andriasang or Siliconera you'll see that Japanese games are alive and well. Sure, you'll see a lot of moe shit. You might also see some games that look interesting. Unfortunately you might then find that they don't get translated. Either way, at this point I can name a lot more upcoming or recent Japanese titles that I want to play than western ones.

After how mad everybody went for Trials HD as soon as it came out, I can't believe that only two people on my friends list have bought Trials Evolution. I don't know if that suggests that we take XBLA for granted or if it's just an example of how fragmented the gaming audience has become over the last few years.

After how mad everybody went for Trials HD as soon as it came out, I can't believe that only two people on my friends list have bought Trials Evolution. I don't know if that suggests that we take XBLA for granted or if it's just an example of how fragmented the gaming audience has become over the last few years.

More of an example of how fragmented the Dashboard is after the Metro UI rollout than either of those two suggestions, to be frank.

Yeah, the only reason I knew about it was because of the review in Edge this month.

It's a good point, Siri - I avoid all the other shit on the dash and only ever use the Games tab, and then only for downloading, but if I wasn't already so into that mode of behaviour, I'd not have a clue.

OT, has anybody else encountered the hilarity of trying to find out if there's any new DLC for games that *aren't* Rock Band? Fucking impossible.

Just to say, Trials Evolution is superb. It's got a smoother difficulty curve than Trials HD and a lot more variety in terms of the types of tracks and challenges it offers. Also, multiplayer is surprisingly entertaining (when it works - it takes a loooong time to find a game).

Also, I gave in and bought Fez, as I had a bunch of MS points sitting in my account. The overwhelming praise can only be because of the game's presentation, I'm sure. Playing the thing is a curious mixture of boredom and frustration. It looks fantastic, but it's seriously lacking elsewhere and, right now, I'm struggling to see what's supposed to lift it out of the realms of other middling XBLA releases.

Interesting comments. I find this happening so much now, where people jump on this bandwagon of hyperbolic praise for games that really aren't that good. I was going to get it this weekend because I don't care if the dev is a dick, but if the game is shite... fuck it...

Totally agree Randy. I recommend Fez to people purely for that intro, which is totally inspired and brilliant.

The rest of the game though, I'm finding to be pretty empty. There are nuggets of awesome in there, but I'm getting lost way too easily, and end up aimlessly wandering a lot. Which is a shame, because it has a great amount of charm. But get it for that intro alone!

The other thing that I found very noticable in Fez, in the bit of time that I spent with it, is that it doesn't appear to be doing a single interesting or new thing. Changing perspective in puzzle games was explored more effectively in games like Crush and Echochrome, and puzzles in Fez don't amount to much at all - if you can't get up to a platform, you simply keep flipping the perspective around until you can. It doesn't require any thought, just the ability to press the bumpers on the pad.

Maybe it expands later on, but the opening couple of hours become stale quickly. If it wasn't for the visuals - which owe a large debt to Cave Story anyway - I don't think I'd be likely to return to it.